Tracing the Galactic Halo: Obtaining Bayesian mass estimates of the Galaxy in the presence of incomplete data

Abstract The mass and cumulative mass profile of the Galaxy are its most fundamental properties. Estimating these properties, however, is not a trivial problem. We rely on the kinematic information from Galactic satellites such as globular clusters and dwarf galaxies, and this data is incomplete and subject to measurement uncertainty. In particular, the complete 3D velocity vectors of objects are sometimes unavailable, and there may be selection biases due to both the distribution of objects around the Galaxy and our measurement position. On the other hand, the uncertainties of these data are fairly well understood. Thus, we would like to incorporate these uncertainties and the incomplete data into our estimate of the Milky Way's mass. The Bayesian paradigm offers a way to deal with both the missing kinematic data and measurement errors using a hierarchical model. An application of this method to the Milky Way halo mass profile, using the kinematic data for globular clusters and dwarf satellites, is shown.